MiniMuffin 2024

UPDATE November 17th: Different start location, and course length.

The 22 kilometre MiniMuffin run is a revised version of the former MegaMuffin run for this year due to delayed maintenance on the northern end of the railbed. It is a 3-6 hour run/power hike including 16 kilometre of technical singletrack with about 600 metres of ascent and descent, and about 7 km of flat rail trail running. It is a very physically demanding course. 

There are no aid stations on the course.

 
Cutoff  is at 2:00 pm  at the 16km point, at the entrance to Admiral Lake Loop  (following the South Ridge loop and the rail trail return). The cutoff is to keep the event in daylight hours. Sunset is 5 pm on November 24.

Highly recommend

Lugged grippy trail running shoes
A running pack
Fully charged phone
Small first aid kit with tensor bandage, and duct tape
Small knife
Whistle
Lots of snacks= 500 calorie range
Water bladder or flasks for at least a litre, and a mini water filter, or purification tablets
Extra buff
Lightweight waterproof breathable shell
Compass
Headlamp
Toque and Gloves (watch the forecast)
A watch that gives distance

Start location: 

44°47'30.0"N 63°08'59.4"W

Registration is at the event between 7:30 and 8:30 on November 24. Start time is 9 a.m.  Cost is $20 cash. All proceeds go to Musquodoboit Trailways association. 

There is a waiver to sign at the time of registration.

2023 MegaMuffin Run

 2023 Mega Muffin Run

The Mega Muffin Run takes place Sunday, November 26. Approximately 32 km with about 11km on railtrail and 19km on remote wilderness single track. The run is unsupported(no aid stations),  and runners are responsible for carrying:

Fully charged mobile phone

Small first aid kit. 

At least one litre of water

(water available for filtering/treatment from streams

A waterproof shell

Enough snacks for a 3-5 hour very difficult trail run.

Run starts and finishes  at the Gibraltar parking lot.

Registration is between 7:30 and 8:45 a.m. the morning of the run. Cost is $20. All runners must fill out the waiver, as usual, at sign in.

At around the 21km mark is a 4 hour cut off. Runners beyond four and a half hours will return on the railtrail to the Gibraltar parking lot.This is to insure runners are back before dark which happens at 4:35 pm that time of the year. 

There is limited parking at the Start Line, so carpooling with friends is good. There is additional parking about 3 km south of the parking lot at Crawford's Falls, and about five parking spots 700m north of the Start Line at the Quarry (do not park in front of the gate).

Virtual Muffin Run

This year I am not organizing a Muffin Run as I usually have in the past, around this time of year. If you feel you have it in you though, please feel free to run the end-to-end route. The route begins at the Gibraltar Trail parking lot gate, and ends at the end of the Admiral Lake Loop at the other gate at the end of Bayer's Mill Road. The route is almost all on the singletrack wilderness trail, except for the first  ten metres or so, and the very last kilometre of double track.In total it is approximately 25km, and will take somewhere betweem 3 to 5 hours to complete.

Once you have completed the route, you can send me your time, and I will compile a list of runners that have completed it with your recorded time, gate-to-gate. If you send me your time, please make sure it does not deduct time for stoppage, as some watches have this funny little feature. And be honest, etc.

The trails are in amazing shape these days, and even if you don't do the full 25 you should go check out the trails. If you want to send me a time for a half loop, or variation I can include that in the compilation under a separate sub-section. If you want to do an out and back on the 25km route - 50km - please send me the info - I do not think this has ever been attempted! If you are planning on doing it, I am thinking sometime before the 15th of December will be the cutoff date to finish compiling the finishers. I can always add you later though, if you were busy training before that date : )

Please be careful out there, and run with snacks, charged mobile, a shell, water, and a buddy if possible.

2019 Muffin timing

I have never seen the trail as beautiful as Sunday morning with the low winter nearly solstice sun lighting up the interior of the woods! It was amazing, and the runners were amazing- look at the results! Holy smoking fast! Congratulations everyone and thanks to the volunteers Alexandria Alex Jack Karine Liz Al and Simon! Be sure to check David Garlock's awesome photographs of the run too- thanks Dave!

Jodi Isenor 1:47:50/1:17:50
Jeff Mosher 1:50:47/1:20:47
Tim Brooks 1:57:29/1:27:29
Tristan Cleveland 2:00:51/1:30:51
Kerry Coulen 2:08:33/1:38:33
René Julien 2:18:00/1:58:00
Frazer Egerton         2:31:57/2:01:57
Jody Little 2:33:15/2:03:15
Sean Cassidy 2:11:07
Tim Farmer 2:11:07
Steve Taylor 2:41:40/2:11:40
Matt Keith 2:43:00/2:13:00
Shane Patelakis 2:47:09/2:17:09
Rene Boucher 2:47:13/2:17:13
Krista Keirstead 2:35:21/2:25:21
Chris Morrison 3:12:40/2:42:40
Alena Richard 3:18:12/2:48:12
Jenny Koutroulakis 3:21:07/3:01:07
Kimberly von Boxtel 3:02:18

2019 Muffin Run scheduled

Musquodoboit Muffin Run Sunday December 8. Start at 10 am at Crawford's Falls. Distance is approximately 16km. Registration is on the morning of, and closes at 9:30 at the start/finish line. There is lots of parking on both sides of the bridge. There are no facilities at the start/finish. The start finish location is on Highway 357 (aka Meagher's Grant Rd) approximately 12km from the intersection of highways 357 and #7.  Coordinates of the start/finish are:  44.872673, -63.220254.

The are no feed stations on the trail. All runners must have at minimum a pack, a rain shell, a fully charged mobile phone, snacks and water. Registration is $20, and waivers must be signed at registration. There are no awards or prizes for this event- except everyone gets a muffin.

The course begins with approximately 4km of flat rail trail and finishes with about 2km of the same. In between is wilderness singletrack.

NEW! There are an additional 3 optional out-and-back sections on the singletrack segment. They appear at approximately 5 km, 7km, and 12.5km. These are very well marked with blue flagging tape and are steep descents/ascents. Each out and back has a book. Remove one page from each book you get to. You must show the captured pages to the finish timing. Each page deducts 9 minutes from your finishing time. If you get all 3 pages, you get 27 minutes faster! However keep in mind the energy required for these may result in added fatigue and have a deleterious result on the net time. Each out-and-back takes at least 3 minutes. Totally optional.

If you have not run this trail before you are in for a real treat, but please be aware of the extreme technical and physical demands specially of the middle10km section. It may sound short but the distance is compounded by all steep ascents and descents and numerous hops skips and jumps between boulders, and over roots. There are no flat straight sections in this segment of the trail. Trail specific running shoes are highly recommended. Studs or spikes are definitely allowed, and may or may not be helpful depending on environmental conditions.

2018 MMR results

Mega Muffun Run results for November 11, 2018 from the official timing chip. Your time may vary, but everyone's varies by the same degree.

Jodi Isenor  3:08

Mike Mackinnon 3:54

Jason White 3:55 (Flyin' Nutz participant)

Scott Clarke 4:07

Steve Taylor 4:13

Abdel Alkuor 4:29

Nikolay Ryabkov 4:47

Susan Cargill 4:48

Sara Thompsom 4:48 (Flyin' Nutz participant)

Katie Oleksiuk 4:49

John Brennan 4:49

Kent Beattie 5:03

Jim Foster 5:08

Cut-off finishers and Creative Variations of the course.

Daan Verkoeijen 3:18 (Flyin' Nutz participant)

Sanne Verkoeijen 3:18 (Flyin' Nutz participant)

Sean Cassidy 3:24 (swamp variation )

Janice Teal 3:28 (with injury and swamp variation (most direct route out btw))!

Keith Colter 5:28 (missed the end of the South Ridge trail) (Flyin' Nutz participant)

Tim Farmer 3:49 (followed Sean)

Kerry Coolen 3:56 (off course)

Morag McDonah 4:06(off course)

Will Taylor 4:52
Elise Huet 5:38

Robert Fawcett 5:43 (Flyin' Nutz participant)

A gigantic thank you for everyone that came- runners and volunteers alike to the above, and to the following: Dana, Denise, Jack, Jeff, Karine, Laurie, Simon, and my Mom! 

Every year this event delivers new challenges and as usual, the participants handle them with style and skill. When I tell people down here (I live close to the trail) that I have a running event-they think I mean on the railbed. When I explain, no it is on the wilderness trail, they invariably inhale and widen their eyes in the same way when they see extraterrestrials depicted on the big screen, or see a bug that resembles same beings. 

I think we may tend to skew our perspectives on our own strengths and successes by comparing them to others or even our slightly quicker times and possibly shortchange our personal successes. I did not, however detect any of that on Sunday, and hope everyone can carry for awhile that feeling of success they had from finishing a long and difficult trail- even if you went "shorter", there is no way this could be mistaken as an easy run. 

I hope to see everyone next year for the return of the Mega Muffun Run, and a mini Muffun Run option.

2018 Mega Muffun Run

If you have ever wanted to complete all four of the consecutive wilderness trails at once, here is your opportunity! November 11th at  9 a.m. is the start of the new MEGA Muffun Run. It is now 99.98 % wilderness  trail, which means starting at the very beginning of the Gilbraltar trail, and finishing on the Admiral Lake Loop. It is about 25km in total, and will take approximately between 3.25 hours, and 4.75 hours. There will be one water/snack stations this year, at the intersection of the south ridge and the Admiral Lake Loop (approximately the three quarters mark)

The sign in is at the Bayer's Mill Rd. entrance! But, the run BEGINS at Gibraltar parking lot -  that is the north-most parking lot at the very end of the Musuquodoboit Rail Trail about 15 km up the Meagher's Grant Road. So the run goes in a general North-South direction.

There are two cut-off times on the run (no one has ever missed the first cut off time by the way). The first one is at the intersection of the North and South Ridge trails, is 2 hours, five minutes. If you are over this time, you will then run/hike the rail trail back to the finish. The second cut-off time is 3 hours 45 minutes at the intersection of the South Ridge trail and the Admiral Lake Loop. If you are past this time, you will continue along the Turtle Brook trail to the rail trail to the finish. Volunteers will be at both locations.

While this is an opportunity to do something unique and adventurous, it will require extra COOPERATION between runners to shuttle cars. Please organize your ride before you drive to the start line. The run finishes at the end of Bayer's Mill Rd. Trail entrance at the gate. It is advised you park your car here, or one of your fellow runners park a car here on Bayer's Mill Rd. in order to retrieve the other  parked vehicle from the Gibraltar parking lot.
There will be treats at the Bayer's Mill Rd. Gate at the end of the run. It is highly ADVISED to leave a bag of warm dry clothes to change into with me or someone at the finish- you may have to wait otherwise for cars to be unlocked, or driven, etc. This is not  a requirement, but you will thank yourself for your good planning.

Registration is $30 on Race Roster. Sign in is done at 8:30 so please arrive early to switch vehicles, and sign-in and drive to the start. Runners are required to read and sign a legal waiver, and also fill in the sign-in sheet.



In summary:
Bring your pack with mobile, food and water.
Sign in at the finish line, leave your warm dry clothes here.
Drive to the start -- approximately ten minute drive.
Have fun.